Himanshu PatelThe traditional taxi business immune system to digitalization: We don’t know it, so we don’t want it.
But, the ignorance towards the technology revolution has put their survival into question. They are dying a slow death, losing the customers to mobile taxi businesses, and the revenue going southwards, all just due to the false strategy.
The sudden knock off by the taxi-hailing companies has taught a serious lesson to some of the traditional taxi business, that’s why they had started transforming the legacy businesses and turning the established businesses into mobile business with a taxi dispatch software.
Let’s understand the taxi dispatch solution in a nutshell:
The taxi dispatch system is a mobile application or software that connects the passengers ‘searching for the taxi’ with the drivers ‘looking to take the passengers for a ride’.
Just a single tap on mobile and the passengers can view the nearby drivers and book the taxi. When the passengers book the ride, the job allocation request is sent to all nearby drivers by the application and the driver who accepts the request first will get the next ride job.
Additionally, the web panel enables seamless taxi management of all the processes involved with taxi booking on a centralized dashboard.
Based on the taxi business nature, different types of Taxi Dispatch Software System can be implemented:
- White Label Taxi App Development
The readymade taxi app solution allows you to mobilize the taxi business in just a week or 15 days. The basic features, in addition to some advanced features, are also included in the package with a little customization facility to rebrand the app.
- Custom Taxi App Development
The applications are built from scratch meeting the taxi business-specific needs with a great degree of modifications that can be made at any stage of the development. Also, scalability, security, and reliability are the competitive advantage of custom apps.
- Rental/Corporate Services
The corporate taxi apps specifically serve the corporate person travel needs with high-end cars or extra accessories requirements. The rental service app fulfills the car rental service provider’s needs of allowing the passengers to book the taxi on rent for pick and drop based on hourly rates.
The mobile taxi revolution is transforming the taxi industry at an unprecedented pace:
Pushing the boundaries of the simple taxi-hailing app that’s connecting drivers and riders, the layer of automation is eliminating the labor-intensive tasks, simplifying business processes, improving business efficiency, and making it affordable.
The driver-less taxi, fleet tracking solution, modernized payment system, AI-backed customer support, and smart analytics under the taxi dispatch solution umbrella is bringing a bouquet of benefits to the taxi business.
Let’s dig deeper to know how taxi booking app can help your business save huge bucks and time:
Cost optimization
The traditional taxi dispatch system, manual taxi management, search cost, and other things waste a lot of time, money, and efforts.
On the other hand, with a mobile taxi solution, the drivers don’t need to waste the time in the wait of the booking request to-be sent by the taxi dispatch with direct booking requests from the passengers on mobile and can conclusively complete more rides in a day. With an independent business model, there is no need to own multiple cars and employ the drivers, which further frees up the taxi business owner from vehicle management and other expenses. The app ends up the need of searching the passengers and inform if another passenger is also looking for a ride in the same route that enables the driver to cover more miles in a day.
In this manner, with no search, no communication, and no service helpline, the drivers can get the booking request that ultimately cut down the operational cost.
Vehicle scheduling
The vehicles are the great assets for the taxi business that requires timely maintenance and unfortunately, sometimes they break down or start malfunctioning. But, maintaining a record of all the vehicles and continuously checking the vehicles’ health is quite a task and tiresome.
That’s where the taxi dispatch solution organizes the complete process by digitally maintaining a record of all the maintenance activities related to every vehicle. Also, the GPS-embedded machines in the vehicle proactively track and report the owner if any malfunctioning is found, which helps in taking the right action before it gets worsens.
Real-time intelligence
The GPS technology enables real-time tracking, and which is now an integral part of the cloud-based taxi dispatch solutions. The real-time traceability helps all the three users of the entire taxi dispatch solution.
It allows the passengers to track the driver’s location when there is any delay in their arrival, or check the routes they are using while coming to pick them up. The drivers can see the shortest path to reach the passengers or can get the directions for the timely arrival at the pick-up point. The admin can also monitor the driver’s activities such as check the speed limit, and track the route that the driver is taking for security reasons or alternate routes are suggested during the traffic jam or unexpected changes in weather conditions.
Read more :How location-based app working ?: A step-by-step guide
Secure Payment System
Making payment in cash is no more safe and convenient for the people. Realizing the cashless or automated payment trend, the taxi dispatch iOS application solution provides multiple payment methods such as credit card, debit card, mobile wallets, and others, which offers great flexibility during payment.
Moreover, the data collected by the system during transactions can be misused or stolen. It can be prevented with the integration of the payment gateways such as Stripe, Braintree, and PayPal that manage the transaction and ensure the user’s financial information remain secure.
Enhances Booking Frequency
Undoubtedly, the taxi booking by calling the fleet manager, or waiting for a taxi available nearby is a time-consuming process. The negotiations on a fare, calling drivers for the trip, and searching the taxi are the additional hassles, which increases the amount of time taken in a taxi booking.
With the taxi dispatch app, the passengers can get connected with the drivers in just a single tap and fare estimation is pre-determined. The automated process reduces the total taxi booking time by a great margin. Thereby the drivers can get more booking requests and perform to the peak efficiency, which means increased productivity.
Read more: Cab Booking App like Uber ?
Caller ID integration
Entering the passenger’s detail repetitively for every new booking by the taxi dispatch system is an unintelligent process that wastes time and the chances of errors make the passengers unhappy. That’s where caller ID integration with a taxi dispatch solution is a smart tactic.
With caller ID integration, the passenger’s data can be stored and used when needed. For instance, when the passenger book the taxi for the second time, the customer details like- name, previous ride, preferred payment method, and other data can be easily fetched just by entering the contact number that’s saved in the system.
The mobile integration can be set up by purchasing hardware that allows the mobile device to interact with the computer or leveraging VOIP service.
Rate & Review Option
Irrespective of how best the taxi services are offered to the passengers from the taxi owner’s perspective, there always exists the room for improvement. The traditional taxi businesses have completely ignored this aspect that has never allowed them to make their services stand up-to-the-par.
With a taxi dispatch solution, the taxi businesses have a powerful weapon in their arsenal, that’s feedback feature which helps them view the services from the passenger’s lens and improve accordingly.
The passengers can rate and provide feedback for the taxi services they have received in terms of timely arrival, driver’s behavior, and other facilities provided. When the passengers are informed about the valuable feedback that’s taken into notice and required changes are reflected in the services, it delights them.
Boost driver efficiency
Presently, the data is a king, that’s when used and acted upon rightly it works wonder for the businesses. Be it, monitoring business activities, enhancing passenger experience, or increasing driver’s productivity, the organized data helps.
In the driver’s scenario, the data about the active zones where the booking requests increases during the peak hours is when gets available to the drivers at the right time, they can improve the speed of completing the rides or can also look for the ride-sharing option, if it’s possible.
The ride log digitization diminishes the mistakes and time invested in manually logging and reporting the rides. The reduced time consumption in manual tasks enables the drivers to focus on completing more rides.
Taximeter integration
Often, the drivers face conflict at the end of the journey regarding unfair fare calculation, which can be eliminated with taxi meter integration with taxi dispatch solution.
There is no need to buy the expensive taxi meter hardware, instead, the integrated taxi meter software automatically computes the fare precisely based on the rates defined per kilometer, mileage-based, peak hours, or zip-to-zip and add surcharges for tolls, airport fees, or luxury vehicles. By doing so, the probability of errors gets zero down and the passengers remain happy with transparency maintained in fare calculation.
Digital receipt management for corporate accounts
For the corporate rides, the bookkeepers have to manage chit and receipts during monthly invoicing, in addition to traditional ride allocation and reconciliation. Going conventionally, it’s a daunting task and eats up a lot of time as well.
That’s where digitizing the whole account process with a taxi dispatch solution comes to rescue! The system automatically allocates the ride to the driver and matches with the system before or after the ride, which makes it easier for the managers to track the reports of every account, and reconcile the payment history and rides.
Dispatch Software cost for Your Existing Business
The advanced features help the businesses in automatizing the processes and increasing the efficiency, in addition to huge ROI. Geared up to mobilize the business with a taxi dispatch application? If so, that’s great. But, before jumping on the mobile bandwagon, you should be aware of how much it cost to build an app like- Uber. Here’s the brief about how much you are required to invest:
Depending on the advanced functionalities, design complexity, and back-end support, the app development cost ranges between $25,000 and $40,000 with free post-development support.
Epilogue
Unquestionably, the mobile app-based services are ruling the taxi industry while showing no sign of getting slow down. It’s a sign the traditional businesses can lose the game if they further ignore mobilization. What’s your take?
Adopt the mobile taxi booking system to reinvent the traditional taxi business, rejuvenate the processes, and earn revenue in 8-figures, in addition to a slew of benefits. Get connected with a taxi app Development Company to get a holistic solution meeting your business needs in every way.
